


Take as Needed

by perpetuallyundone



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Complete, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, One Shot, Pre-Canon, implied alcohol use/abuse, just so much angst, slightly unhealthy sexual relationships, use of prescription medication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-06 10:55:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11599182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perpetuallyundone/pseuds/perpetuallyundone
Summary: They've hit the two week mark: there's only 13 days left before the biggest night of their lives. Kent's trying not to count hours and Jack's trying to live up to expectations as he wonders if the medication is a crutch or an escape or just part of him now. But no amount of pills can stop Kent from pushing just the right buttons. And Kent's starting to realize there's nothing he can say that can get Jack out of his own head.





	Take as Needed

**Author's Note:**

> this was written to fill a prompt on the omgcp dreamwidth kink meme: “Jack/Parse, sex in the Q and angst. JUST FUCK ME UP OKAY. I CAN TAKE THE PAIN“. I'm hoping to fill more prompts there and post them here as well, but I'm not sure whether or not I'm going to categorize them as part of a series. we'll see!  
> _/ . \\_  
> this is my first time posting to ao3, so please feel free to let me know if there's anything I should change with regards to tagging, etc.  
> 

They have 13 more days, and Jack’s trying not to lend significance to that number. He remembers counting down the final dwindling days of summer before returning to school around this time the past four years; these last two weeks before the draft feel a lot like that, but multiplied infinitely in their significance. Add a million eyes, subtract the familiarity. He’s being divided up, piece by piece, into the thousand things that pull his attention in different directions and away from where Kent is in his lap, rocking their hips together and fisting his hands in Jack’s hair hard enough to hurt. It doesn’t hurt enough.  
  
“I can like, stop if I’m boring you,” Kent says, sitting back from where his face was pressed to Jack’s neck, his voice hard-edged and tired. That’s happening a lot more lately. When Jack’s gaze slides to him from where he’d been staring at the opposite wall Kent looks betrayed. He takes this so personally, despite the explanations that Jack gives him time and time again.  _It’s not your fault_  and  _There’s nothing you can do_  and the dozens of variations on a theme that Kent begs for and Jack supplies.  
  
The meds aren’t working like they used to, and even though the bottle says ‘AS NEEDED,’ Jack doesn’t know how to find the words to tell his doctor or his parents or his shrink or even Kent that the need is always. The need is constant. It keeps him up at night, even with the alcohol in his blood. He’s been taking more, but that edge keeps moving and he keeps adjusting to try to keep up, only for it to slip out of his fingers again. His hands are loose on Kent’s waist, and he tries to ground himself on the sweatshirt under his fingers, to feel the fabric and the seam. It’s blue. Kent’s eyes are grey. The bed is firm under him. He’s here, even if his breath is shuddery.

“Sorry,” he says, his hand smoothing up the side of Kent’s neck to curl around the nape of it, tug him down until their mouths meet. Kent’s reluctant, and when they part Kent searches Jack’s face, sees how wide Jack’s pupils are blown, and knows it’s not because of him. “No, don’t. I just need- just a second.” Kent’s eyes drop and he climbs off and Jack knows exactly the expression he’ll see, the way Kent’s body will be turned away when he turns around from where he’s pulling the bottle out of his bag. The rattle as he shakes two of them out is loud in the room compared to the muted sounds of the TV in his parents’ room down the hall.  
  
Kent’s withdrawn into himself by the time Jack climbs back onto the bed, arms crossed low across his stomach as he reclines back on the pillows, the garish light from his phone highlighting his mouth, his eyes. Jack’s sweats are too big on him, pooling around his legs where they’re crossed one over the other. It’s one of Kent’s favorite things for Jack to pull those sweats down just far enough for them to drop to the floor while Jack’s kneeling in front of him and puts his mouth on him. Jack knows this, and feels the weight of that expectation, the expectation to perform the way Kent wants, as much here as on the ice.  
  
“Do you want to go home?”  
  
Kent’s eyes flick to Jack, perched awkwardly on his side of the bed. It’s been his since the first time Kent came over for the night, happily tossing himself down on the half of the mattress closer to the window, arms spread wide as he told Jack he’d better get used to it. He has. He hates the nights he sleeps alone, pillows arranged up against his back.  
  
“No. Do you want me to?” Kent asks, voice curt, and Jack feels flayed open by it as he shakes his head. He doesn’t know where to sit, how to position himself in the hostile realm of the bed now that Kent’s claimed it, and he lets himself believe that he’s uncomfortable because of the awkwardness between them. That there’s a single place on earth he could be where he’d feel right.

“What do you want?"  
  
Kent’s reaction is immediate: his jaw working like he’s chewing and swallowing words Jack can tell he wants to spit at him, a sharp exhale through his nose. He can't believe how small Jack's voice sounds, the same one that booms across the ice during games, the one that used to go bright with laughter when they practiced together in the mornings.  
  
“I don’t wanna do this tonight, Zimms,” is what he settles on, and Jack can taste bile in the back of his throat. Again. Again, again,  _again_. He doesn’t know if Kent realizes he’s as tired of this refrain as he is. He drops his eyes to the comforter, something barbed settling in his chest and twisting his mouth. “I’m fuckin’ tired of this shit. I shouldn’t have to miss you when you’re right there, man, it’s bullshit.” He gestures at Jack like the distance between them on the bed is miles and a matter of feet all at once. “Like fuck, can’t you just fuck me and pretend to be okay?”  
  
Jack nods, the motion jerky but firm. Pretending to be fine isn’t a new concept so much as it’s a well-practiced skill by this point, and he’s intimately acquainted with the concept of fake it ‘til you make it. He knows half of what Kent’s saying is born of his genuine frustration, but the rest of it’s a challenge, just like the shots at the parties and the shots at practice, the same push and goad and comparison that’s woven them together like a string since the first day of practice.  
  
Climbing over to Kent is awkward, and the way Jack kisses him is stilted and hesitant, contrite in a way that Kent hates. He doesn’t want this Jack. He wants the happy Jack riding the high of another win, even if it’s always short lived. Or the blushing and fumbling Jack fucked up on rum, who lets Kent sit in his lap with only the minimal compulsory objection. Not the one who acts like his existence warrants apology. Kent wants to kiss that Jack away, leech him out through Jack’s lips like sucking venom from a wound. He can take it. His bruised knuckles and the puckering scars on his thighs can handle it. He can handle it. If Jack would only let him.  
  
There’s no gentleness in it. Kent bites Jack’s lip hard, just shy of opening it up, and pulls him down into the cradle of his hips, refusing to leave room between them for the distraction. It’s easier for Kent to think of it as distraction. It’s a softer word, easier to fit into the gaps between who he wants Jack to be and how he is really is. He kisses Jack like he wants to consume him, kisses until his lungs are on fire and he’s arching up into Jack, rutting his cock up into Jack’s in a graceless attempt to get him hard, too. Kent rakes his hands down Jack’s back under his shirt hard enough to leave marks and knows they’ll cause chatter in the locker room about Zimmermann puck bunnies, leaving Jack either flushed or annoyed. There’s no way to know which way he’ll fall these days.  
  
Kent knows he’s gotten Jack far enough out of his own head when Jack’s mouth disappears, half his body leaning away too as Jack rummages through the nightstand for a bottle. He sits up on his knees between Kent’s legs when he returns, tugging Kent’s borrowed sweats down by the fabric and over the bulge of his cock, freeing it to bounce up towards his belly, shiny at the tip, leaving a glistening smear of precome near his navel. Jack seals his mouth over the spot, chin bumping Kent’s dick as he hikes Kent’s shirt further up his chest. His other hand pushes Kent’s knee back and Kent bends for him willingly, exposed and hungry.  
  
“ _Fuck_ -“ He grates the word out, hot breath and the trembling clench of muscles as Jack presses two fingers into him. There are days when they go slow with this, where Jack works him up to four fingers and sucks him off greedily until his lips are swollen and red, luxuriating in the time before his parents get home, or they can’t justify being gone any longer. But those days are dwindling, and neither of them are up for pretending they want to waste the time tonight, risk the kind of sounds Kent usually makes when Bob and Alicia are down the hall. “Fuck, Jack,  _yes_.” Jack’s fingers pump slick and steady in a rhythm that lets Kent work his body down onto his hand, leveraged with his shoulders and his hands gripping the bed, comforter a twisted mess. Jack’s lips slip around the head of Kent’s cock as he grinds down into the mattress, an ache low in his belly as he rocks gently, the friction through his pajama pants unsatisfying, but enough.  
  
“More, c’mon babe, gimme more.” The whine that comes from Kent’s chest is high and breathy when Jack slowly presses a third finger into him, his mouth pulling away with a wet sound. His lips are shiny as he stares up Kent’s body at him, gaze focused and intent in a way that’s not dissimilar to how he looks on the ice - analytical, reading Kent like a play unfolding in front of him, trying to get the timing just right. Kent closes his eyes and focuses on the fullness rather than the fact that he can’t remember the last time Jack looked at him like he actually wants him. Jack fucks his fingers into him relentlessly, with a singular focus until Kent says so. “Okay,” he pants, hand jerking in tiny, wet strokes at the tip of his cock before he paws at the front of Jack’s pants, grabbing at him through the cotton before his nails scrabble at the waistband to tug it down. “I’m ready, Zimms, come on. Want you-“  
  
He wishes he could see Jack’s face when he pushes into him, wishes he could see if his expression changes at all. All he can tell is that Jack’s breath is hot on his neck, his back solid and strong under his hands and arms where Kent’s wrapped around him. It’s easier to talk when Jack’s not looking at him. “Fuck,” he whimpers, the fullness so good but so much, breath coming out in stilted hitches. “You feel so good.  _Shit_ , yes. Fuck.  _Fuck_.” Jack’s hips start rocking and Kent crosses his ankles, holding onto him like they could become inseparable if he only tried hard enough. The world can either fuck off or square up if they want to take Jack Zimmermann away from him. “Ohh, fuck yes. You’re fucking perfect. You’re the best. You’re the fucking best, Zimms, we’re the best in the world.” The snap of Jack’s hips into him gets sharper, Jack shuffling up the bed a little to leverage himself. “It’s always gonna be you. You and me.”  
  
Jack wishes he’d stop talking. He tries to fuck Kent into incoherence, but all it accomplishes is a desperate edge to Kent’s voice and the headboard knocking into the wall in time. He’s not sure if Kent is clueless or just doesn’t care anymore, can’t see what’s right in front of them. Or he can, and he’s just choosing not to. Maybe he’s able to escape it.  
  
Jack’s name becomes a litany in Kent’s mouth as Jack loses his breath, the press of his face into Kent’s skin too wet and claustrophobic. Kent doesn’t stop talking until Jack flips him over and covers his mouth with his hand, telling himself it’s because Kent’s being too loud. The frame continues to beat a tattoo into the wall until Jack shakes apart and stills, hands gripping the sheets on either side of Kent’s body’s so hard his fingers tingle as blood returns to them when he lets go. Kent’s cheek stays pressed to the too-hot, damp sheet as Jack pulls away, and he can pretend his breathing is ragged because of the sex, that the wetness on the sheet under his face is just from his skin and not his stinging eyes.  
  
The pretending stops when Kent hears the bathroom door close.  
  
He cleans himself up, puts a pair of Jack’s boxers on under the same borrowed sweats as before, a silent act of defiance against the calendar on the wall with the 26th circled in red. Maybe Jack’ll let him keep the sweats. A part of him that he refuses to look at threatens that it’s the only part of Jack he’ll get to keep.  
  
Kent stays, piles up the comforter around him and buries himself in it up to his eyes, his edges softened when Jack comes back into his room looking more tired and dead in the eyes than Kent’s ever seen him. He lets Jack press his back up against his chest, wraps his arms around him and pets his hair, kisses the back of his neck. He doesn’t talk, and neither does Jack.  
  
Jack falls asleep thinking about the number 13. 


End file.
